I'm at the end of my tether with DS and his awful behaviour. Help!

[zephyrcat]

He is driving me to despair and I am at the point where I just don't know what else to do with him. He is 5.2, and going into year 1 next week. His main problem is he doesn't listen. Closely followed by he just doesn't care.

He will act like a complete idiot, being silly, throwing himself around, shouting, making stupid noises etc etc etc, the list goes on forever. If you tell him off, or send him to his room or a naughty step/place, take things from him, stop him doing things he simply doesn't care.

He isn't deliberately 'naughty', he is just unbelievably laid back and trundles through life doing what he wants. Nothing phases him.

He has a terrible temper and if you catch him on a moment when his temper goes and tell him off he will quite easily go to his room and trash it. then it's all over and he's fine.

Are they all like this at his age? Is there anything anyone can suggest I do with him??

Should have said he went to my Mum's for a week with DD last week and was just the same at her house so he is now not allowed to go to DP's Mum's this weekend to which he just growled at us and couldn't really care less.

How is he at school ?

In my experience it's pretty normal behaviour, especially at the end of the school holidays. Children of this age have a huge amount of energy to use up, and if they get bored they start doing the sorts of things you describe.

What sort of activities does he do? Will he start school full time?

And punishments such as the naughty step or being sent to their bedrooms just really doesn't bother them, they don't see it as a punishment.

Don't panic about him being this way at school unless they have previously told you he is naughty. As a year 1 teacher we find they come up from Foundation in September and need to be 're-trained' into school life. This will happen easily and in 2/3weeks you will see a big difference. Also the way that KS1 works is different from foundation stage - although most schools have a transition phase and you will find he is learning that much that he gets mentally and physically exhausted by school and will settle better at night.

Good Luck

He is an angel at school, which is re-assuring, but he is just getting unbearable! He is the second of four children so there is always lots going on and I wonder if sometimes it's an attention thing. His sister does wushu kung fu and I have taken him several times to see if would enjoy it but he just started to misbehave there too. We took him to football when he suggested he would like to go but he didn't really enjoy that either. We took him to the local spitfire/aircraft museum and he was good until it came to leaving and because DP wouldn't buy him a model plane he went into meltdown and temper. More what I expect from his 3yo sister!
What's the best way to react when he behaves like this? Just ignore him until he gets over it?